“Come here, sweetheart,” she said, and Lily ran into her grandmother’s embrace and held on.
Marcus waited until Lily had settled into the guest room, occupied with drawing at the little desk, before walking into the kitchen with Evelyn.
“I need you to hear something.”
He placed his phone on the counter and played the recording.
Evelyn listened without interrupting.
Marcus watched her expression move from confusion, to horror, and finally into a cold stillness that reminded him of Hannah whenever someone she loved was threatened.
“Who is Julian?” Evelyn asked when the recording ended.
Marcus had spent part of the drive searching through his own emails.
He unlocked his phone and showed her.
Julian Vance-Montague.
Senior real estate consultant and managing director at Blue Horizon Asset Management.
The same firm Sarah had recommended to Marcus four months earlier, presenting it as the ideal solution for the costly, mostly empty Vineyard estate.
The company had sent a polished proposal for managing and renting the property.
Fortunately, some instinct Marcus could not explain had kept him from signing it.
It mattered more than he could express that Evelyn’s house was where he had driven first.
When his entire world turned upside down and he needed somewhere absolutely safe for Lily while he gathered evidence, there had been no real question.
Not a hotel.
Not a friend’s home.
Hannah’s mother.
Evelyn had loved Lily before she was even born.
She had taken her to Hannah’s grave every year and poured the love she still carried for her daughter into her granddaughter without asking for anything in return.
Sarah had spent a year performing the role of family so convincingly that Marcus had believed it.
But when performance fell away and Marcus needed the real thing, the difference became obvious.
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